What are you listening 2 now?

[Ratliff]

I hadn't heard of him before now and so decided to look him up.  In Wiki, it says that Charles Stanford considered him the most talented of his pupils---even over Vaughan Williams and Holst!   

PD

I'm not so impressed with Stanford's recommendation. Stanford, in my opinion, composed some of the most boring music ever heard. I can imagine Stanford's criticism of Vaughan Williams, "how can anyone nod off with all that racket?"

[Ratliff]

Lulu, Marc Albrecht, Patricia Petibon in the lead role



I don't know if this counts as watching or listening.

I must say I came away somewhat baffled. Along the way there were moments of great beauty, particularly from the orchestra. But the plot strikes me as a convoluted mess. The the theme (Lulu as a philosophical femme fatale, attractive yet repulsive, powerful yet victim) strikes me as pseudo intellectual nonsense.

Two comments on the production, the audio on these productions is never ideal because of the use of body microphones, and I wish they would not use the extreme closeups of the singers. The hammy acting needed in an opera production works in the house, but looks silly in extreme closeups.

This represents 2 months listening...

[Pohjolas Daughter]

I'm not so impressed with Stanford's recommendation. Stanford, in my opinion, composed some of the most boring music ever heard. I can imagine Stanford's criticism of Vaughan Williams, "how can anyone nod off with all that racket?"

 

PD

[Irons]

I assume you mean that as a compliment? Bush is a composer I've been meaning to explore further; I really like his Symphony no. 2 Nottingham. There's not a ton of his music available, though.

Yes I do. For me as a listener surprise is the highest compliment. Beside the piano pieces all performed by himself the three Alan Bush works I have sampled, Violin Concerto, Concert Studies and Dialectic could not be more different but each I find endlessly interesting. Which other English composer would use Bulgarian folk music as inspiration?
The Dialectic for SQ starts at a level and steadily rises similar, I think, in the manner of Beethoven's Grosse Fuge. 

[Madiel]

I think BIS dropped the ball on their Tubin box set, but I had decided so many years ago that buying the individual releases (especially if I could get them cheaply) was the best way to go. If I may make a suggestion, I would try and see if you can't get all of the single issues instead of the box set. This might be more expensive and it might be a bit more difficult to track all of the recordings down, but only three recordings in the original series have symphonies coupled together: 2 & 6, 3 & 8 and 4 & 9. The rest of the series have either one symphony coupled with misc. orchestral works or entire recordings devoted to non-symphonic orchestral works or concerti. In terms of Järvi and Volmer, for me, Järvi wins hands down. He's more energetic and seems to get this music off the ground better than Volmer who is more laid-back. One of the good things about Volmer, however, is he's recorded the complete Kratt, so if you decide to get any of his Tubin, get this recording, which is coupled with a very good performance of Sinfonietta on Estonian Motifs.

BIS does tend to try, more than most record companies, to keep their whole catalogue available, so it does look as if getting the single Tubin CDs would be pretty feasible. For example Presto is claiming it can get most of them (though there's a risk that's just because it's years since anyone asked and they've had no reason to revise the status!).

I certainly think, after listening to both versions just now, that I'd want to get the Sinfonietta one way or another. If anything I might have had a slight preference for Vollmer, but of course that's only one work. And I enjoyed Jarvi's version as well.

[Papy Oli]

Earlier : Bliss Meditations on a theme by John Blow, Music for strings, Prayer to the infant Jesus.

Most probably another future purchase.



Now : Tubin - 6th symphony



no idea on the background of this work, it sounds like I am in a 70's suspense movie soundtrack...in a very good way... 

edit: that second mvt is just plain bonkers, would love to hear that live !!

[Papy Oli]

Vivaldi

A great boxset, hope you are enjoying the journey 

[Madiel]

Tubin: Toccata



Pretty sure Jarvi's is the only performance available. Short. Punchy. I like it. My right knee especially it seems...

[Irons]

Yes, I read that he died young and had had serious problems with asthma all of his life.  And he smoked?!   

What do you think of what he had composed Irons?

PD

Very good, P. Olivier has already covered the recordings I own. One orchestral and the other chamber both on Lyrita.

[Christo]

Now : Tubin - 6th symphony



no idea on the background of this work, it sounds like I am in a 70's suspense movie soundtrack...in a very good way... 

edit: that second mvt is just plain bonkers, would love to hear that live !!

I did, heard symphonies Nos. 5, 6 & 11 (one movement) performed live in Amsterdam & Utrecht (also his piano concertino & double bass concerto). 

[Papy Oli]

A first foray into Holmboe with Symphony No.1.

[71 dB]

For me 'exploring a composer' always comes after being gripped by some piece of music, often unexpectedly. All the rest follows from there, with Tubin is was hearing his Symphony No. 4 'Lirica' on the radio en jumping from my chair after the first chords. The rest is history. (With Sibelius it simply never happened, though I can stand most of his music except for the first three symphonies that still sound 'utterly provincial' to my unadjusted ears). 

In late 90's I listened classical radio station A LOT and found a lot of my favorites that way. In December 1996 I heard Elgar's Enigma Variations on radio and that was a life-changing moment if I ever had one! The classic radio station played a lot of baroque and I learned to love it, but they almost never played contemporary classical music (they played Pärt) so my knowledge and interest of comtemporary classical music stayed weak for long and only the last decade or so has been for me exploration of that and it has been revelationatory to say the least. Nowadays I don't listen to classical radio anymore for many reasons:

1) I have so much classical music on CD I'm struggling to have time to listen to them!
2) The programming has gone downhill (dumbing down).
3) My cable operator is unable to transmit in stereo. (this is the ONLY radio station in mono). I have sent emails to them and even the radio station itself (who where surprised to hear their music is transmitted mono). The sound became stereo for about 2 weeks and then went mono again. I gave up and haven't listened to them since. I have other sources such as Spotify where I can explore real classical music without hearing music from the Lord of the Rings movies!!

I found Weinberg when I happened to saw the opera "The Passenger" on TV.

I did like Sibelius briefly in the beginning of my exploration into classical. I live a few miles away from the Sibelius Monument and the Sibelius Academy. Sibelius has a national flagging day. Finlandia hymn is played often. Everyone knows Sibelius in Finland. However the more I explored classical music the more Sibelius' style (national romanticism) started to get on my nerves. The most annoying aspect of his orchestral music is perhaps his use of percussion. I don't hate Sibelius' music and even enjoy some of it (the finale of the 5th symphony is pretty awesome for example), but I feel being born a Finn and living in Finland gives you enough Sibelius as such.  I believe Sibelius' music has some "issues", certain silliness/naivity in it's timbral aspects of expression. Perhaps to you this causes 'utterly provincial' feel of the the first three symphonies?

I wonder what it was with the first chords of Tubin's 4th Symphony that caused you to jump of the chair?

[T. D.]

Xenakis: Persepolis. I like the gradually morphing mix of rich sounds, similar to ambient music but much louder and not in the least bit "New Age".

Not meaning to politicize a thread, but I always found it quite surprising (and frankly a big turn-off) that Xenakis, the former Underground fighter, accepted a commission from the wife of the Shah of Iran. So I never got around to listening to Persepolis.

[steve ridgway]

Scelsi: The Orchestral Works 1: Hymnos; Hurqualia; Konx-Om-Pax; Canti Del Capricorno. The exotic singing in the Canti del Capricorno pieces breaks up the orchestral works really well for me, making the album good for playing all the way through.

[Mirror Image]

BIS does tend to try, more than most record companies, to keep their whole catalogue available, so it does look as if getting the single Tubin CDs would be pretty feasible. For example Presto is claiming it can get most of them (though there's a risk that's just because it's years since anyone asked and they've had no reason to revise the status!).

I certainly think, after listening to both versions just now, that I'd want to get the Sinfonietta one way or another. If anything I might have had a slight preference for Vollmer, but of course that's only one work. And I enjoyed Jarvi's version as well.

Cool, Madiel. If you do want go the single release route and decide to buy them all new, I would suggest going through the BIS store, but I'm not sure what the shipping costs would be of them vs. Presto. It seems, though, that BIS has all of them in stock. Good to hear you're enjoying Tubin's music.

[steve ridgway]

Not meaning to politicize a thread, but I always found it quite surprising (and frankly a big turn-off) that Xenakis, the former Underground fighter, accepted a commission from the wife of the Shah of Iran. So I never got around to listening to Persepolis.

Argh the "P" word . This composition is now though freely available to all - the ayatollahs can listen to it too if they haven't firewalled the site .

[Christo]

A first foray into Holmboe with Symphony No.1.

The First is very premature, a better & still very 'early' place to start would perhaps be with No. 3 - if you allow me to interfere again with your businesses. 

[Traverso]

Haydn

Symphonies 33 - 36 - 108

[SonicMan46]

Telemann, GP - Paris Quartets - selections from the sets below; over the years, as w/ GP's Tafelmusik, I've culled out a number of these recordings and have kept the two below as my favorites - these are two sets of a total of 12 chamber works published in the 1730s (see below); the first group of six quartets fits on a single disc, while the second or 'Nouveaux Quatuors' requires two discs.  IMO, these quartets and the Tafelmusik are good introductions to the voluminous output of Telemann, although many other recordings could be chosen.  Dave

The Paris Quartets is a collective designation for two sets of Chamber music compositions, each consisting of six works for flute, violin, viola da gamba (or cello), and continuo, by Georg Philipp Telemann, first published in 1730 and 1738, respectively. Telemann called his two collections Quadri and Nouveaux Quatuors. The collective designation "Paris quartets" was only first bestowed upon them in the second half of the twentieth century by the editors of the Telemann Musikalische Werke, because of their association with Telemann's celebrity visit to Paris in 1737–38 (Zohn 2008, 600n37). They bear the numbers 43:D1, 43:D3, 43:e1, 43:e4, 43:G1, 43:G4, 43:g1, 43:A1, 43:A3, 43:a2, 43:h1, 43:h2 in the TWV (catalog of Telemann's works). (Source)

 

[Mahlerian]

Mozart: Idomeneo Act 3
Barbara Hendricks, Roberta Alexander, Susanne Mentzer, Francisco Araiza, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, cond. Davis